InStyle: No, Famous People Aren't Like You At All

Ouch! The January issue of InStyle certainly put us in our place. Just in case we were harboring any illusions about the wealthy and well-known living lives even remotely similar to our own, along comes “The Lady Is A Trump,” a profile of Ivanka Trump, to disabuse us of our obviously ill-founded notions.  Turns out the rich and powerful have completely different meanings for the most commonplace of words.

For instance, Ivanka’s father, Donald Trump, weighs in on his daughter’s personality: 

“High-profile children get categorized,” says her dad.  “But people are always impressed by how down-to-earth Ivanka is.” 

Down-to-earth, huh? Perhaps the Trump family operates on a different definition of “down-to-earth.” Read on.

And she’s competitive too.  When a friend challenged her to a game of Monopoly, Trump had her assistant research strategies on a board-game Web site to ensure a swift victory. [bolding ours] 

Sheesh. Sounds like overkill to us, but what do we know? We don’t even have an assistant to help us cheat on matters of actual consequence, let alone someone to provide potentially unethical assistance with something as meaningless as a game of Monopoly.

We tend to think that “down-to-earth” doesn’t describe people who have their assistants help them win at board games, though clearly the Trumps don’t agree. Since InStyle already brings us the latest in celebrity fashion, they’re obviously giving us further insight into the lives of the famous by revealing the latest in celebrity vocabulary. Thanks, InStyle—that’s very helpful of you. (And that’s the celebrity use of “helpful,” which, to non-famous people like us, actually means “downright obnoxious.”)